Published: 20 Sep 2022

Mackenzie, Timaru and Waimate District Councils have all voted to move the 2022 date for South Canterbury Anniversary Day to 11 November 2022.

The three councils held individual meetings to vote on moving the day, following the Government announcement of Monday 26 September as Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Day.

Councillors were presented with the results of a survey of more than 8,200 South Canterbury Residents, which asked whether they supported moving the day, with 86.3% of those surveyed agreeing with the proposal.

The proposal to move the day covers the 2022 holiday only, with next year’s South Canterbury Anniversary Day being held on Monday 25 September 2023.

South Canterbury Anniversary Day Survey Results

Method

This survey was undertaken using a Google Form, which allowed for the easiest, most barrier free way of people lodging their feedback. It was promoted through the three councils’ Facebook pages, on their website, with QR codes in the Courier newspaper and directly linked to from a number of stories on Stuff.

To facilitate ease of taking part there were no geographic limits or registration requirements on the survey. This would generally make it less reliable than a more formal survey but from the address field the majority of respondents are from within the three council areas, there aren’t a number of repeated names, and the results show a very clear opinion.

Results

8,270 people filled in the survey, with 86.3% percent of them supporting the moving of South Canterbury Anniversary day from 26 September to 11 November.

Comments

The majority of people (74%) made no additional comment. From the remaining comments most were around the following themes.

• There were a significant number of concerns about the affordability of another public holiday for local businesses.
• There were calls for the 23^rd or 27^th September to be used instead to make it a longer weekend.
• There were concerns that currently businesses in the South Canterbury region benefit from an influx of visitors when the rest of Canterbury has a holiday, particularly in the hospitality/tourism sectors.
• There were comments from a number of people of the unfairness that the rest of the country gets an extra holiday, but we don’t.
• There were also some comments that a Friday holiday had a significantly higher cost to hospitality businesses than a Monday one.

These comments were generally in line with the comments on posts on Social Media posts regarding the survey.

Last updated: 20 Sep 2022